Colorado Avalanche coach Patrick Roy argues a call with the referee during the second period of an NHL hockey game against the Winnipeg Jets on Wednesday, March 19, 2014, in Winnipeg, Manitoba. (John Woods, The Canadian Press)

Now you can see why Patrick Roy has inspired real good loyalty out of his players in his first season as Avalanche coach.

Russia, as we all know now, was bounced out of the Olympics the other day, 3-1, to Finland. His goalie, Semyon Varlamov, allowed all three goals on 15 shots and was pulled midway through. It’s not always fair, but goalies, like quarterbacks, often get too much share of the blame and glory over how their team fares.

Roy knows the mind of a goalie better than any human on the planet probably, and he is also one smart dude when it comes to diversions and mind games and how to change the conversation on things where he wants the conversation changed. He’s got a young goalie who still has never won anything big in his career, who might have come home with his tail between his legs (we still haven’t heard from him yet).

The Avs (13-2, 26 points) conclude a four-game homestand tonight against the Washington Capitals (9-7-1, 19 points) at the Pepsi Center. Colorado is 2-1 this week at home. Washington began a two-game trip Saturday night at Phoenix, where they lost in a shootout. Both teams tonight are on a good stretch. The Avs are 4-1 in their last five and 8-2 in their last 10, and the Caps are 4-0-1 and 7-2-1. Avs player notes: LW Ryan O’Reilly is on a three-game goal streak, tying the longest of his career. Center and fellow 22-year-old Matt Duchene has a three-game points streak (two goals, three assists) and has nine points in his last six games. RW P.A. Parenteau owns a three-game points streak (two goals, two assists). . . . This is the second and final 2013-14 meeting between Colorado and Washington. The Avs won 5-1 on Oct. 12 in D.C. Former Caps goalie Semyon Varlamov made 40 saves in that game and will start for the Avs tonight. … The Avs are 7-1 against Eastern Conference teams this season (2-1 at home). . . . The Avs will done their blue third sweaters tonight. . . . Caps star Alex Ovechkin has 13 goals and 20 points in 15 games but is minus-7, second worst on the team behind center Brooks Laich (minus-8).

VANCOUVER — Seems like the right time to jump into the Calder Trophy conversation, which might begin and end with Avalanche MVP Gabriel Landeskog. The 19-year-old should win the NHL rookie-of-the-year award. He not only is the most complete player among rookies, he might be one of the league’s most complete players.

Landeskog leads the Avs with 78 games played, 22 goals, plus-20 rating, 258 shots, 207 hits and is first among forwards with 53 blocked shots. Among NHL rookies, he is first in shots and takeaways (56) and tied for first in goals (with PHI’s Matt Read), points (49 with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins) and second in plus-minus (NYR’s Carl Hagelin is plus-22) and PPGs with six (BUF’s Cody Hodgson has seven).

Landeskog is the second rookie to produce 20 goals and 200 hits in the season (joining Dian Phaneuf of Calgary in 2005-06) and has the most shots as a rookie since Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby amassaed 426 and 278, respectively, in that same year.

First off, everyone calm down about the Rick Rypien, grabbing a fan thing. He’ll get suspended (I say eight games, because this thing got on CNN, so the pooh-bahs in the NHL front office will appease the PC gods with a tough sentence), commentators who never otherwise watch hockey will do their tsk-tsking and then go right back to bloviating about somesuch other nonsense floating down the transom.

He shouldn’t have done it – repeat, shouldn’t have done it -and he’ll pay a penalty, but it’s not a cause to install 40-foot fence around the player entrance or convene a panel at some think tank to explore the sociological impact on society. A guy grabbed a clapping fan in the opposing jersey for a couple seconds and gave him a shove. It’s hockey, it’s an emotional game, let’s move on. But wait…just watched the Vancouver feed of the incident embedded in this blog, and the Canucks announcers were flat out wrong saying that Wild fan “reached over” the railing to taunt Rypien, and that he’s “got to go.” The guy was just clapping for his team and he got attacked. OK, let’s make it 10 games now, after seeing that homer account of things.

Tough news for the many Ian Laperriere fans here today: Lappy is out indefinitely with post-concussion symptoms. I chatted some with Lappy today, and he’s understandably bummed, and just hoping the symptoms subside. He’ll visit a specialist in Pittsburgh tomorrow. Concussion stories are becoming all the more frequent around the league, as we well know here in Denver with the Peter Mueller situation. Marc Savard of the Bruins is dealing with recurring symptoms, too, and here’s a great story on his battle with that and depression, by longtime Boston Globe writer and one of my personal heroes, Kevin Paul “Moose” Dupont.

That was certainly ugly. That was like Alex Ovechkin’s face plastered on top of John Daly’s body. Just ugly for the Avalanche tonight. What a way to go out, huh? So much for pride and going down with a fight and all that. Read more…

Terry Frei graduated from Wheat Ridge High School in the Denver area and has degrees in history and journalism from the University of Colorado-Boulder. He worked for the Rocky Mountain News while attending CU and joined the Post staff after graduation. He has also worked at the Oregonian in Portland, Ore., and The Sporting News. His seventh book, March 1939: Before the Madness, was issued in February 2014.

Chambers covers college and professional hockey for The Denver Post. He has written for the Post since 1994, after dumping his first 9-to-5 office job a couple years out of college. He primarily follows the University of Denver hockey team and helps cover the Avalanche.